


Order

by Ghost0



Series: The Borg-Cenobite War [4]
Category: Hellraiser (Movies), Star Trek: The Next Generation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-12 09:40:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28508343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghost0/pseuds/Ghost0
Summary: Picard is taken to see the leader of the group known as the Cenobites. He learns what they want with the Borg, and the universe at large. Meanwhile, Data is taken to see a surprising prisoner that the Cenobites have taken
Series: The Borg-Cenobite War [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2018060
Kudos: 2





	Order

The starship Enterprise faced the distorted Borg cube, with the Romulan ship not too far away from their position. First Officer Riker sat in the captain’s chair on the bridge and viewed the vessel on the view screen. His fingers tapped the arm of the chair as we nervously waited for some attempt of communication from Picard. Anything to indicate their position or status, to assure him that they were not in any immediate danger. In Data’s absence, he had asked Lieutenant Commander Geordi to come up to the bridge and temporarily assume his position. Several more moments passed, enough time for Riker to start to get genuinely concerned about their line of communication.

“Geordi, have we received any kind of transmission from the team?” He asked.

“Negative.” Geordi responded. “But our system shows that enough is wrong with the ship’s communications. If someone were to try and contact us we should be able to receive it.”

Riker thought for a moment, thinking back to how they decided to come here. “Data picked up on a signal coming from this Borg ship. Is it possible that whatever it was could potentially be preventing us from making contact with the captain on board?”

“It’s a possibility. Have you tried reaching out?” Geordi inquired.

Riker activated communication, attempted to send a message to Picard. “Captain, this is William Riker. Respond if you hear me?” A moment of silence followed. He then tried reaching out to Data. “Lieutenant Data, what is your status?” But again, silence. 

“Sir, we are being hailed by the Romulan war bird.” Geordi informed Riker.

“On screen.” He found himself staring face to face with the Romulan captain, Hurai. “How may I be of assistance captain?”

“Our attempts to contact our team on the Borg ship have been unsuccessful. I was wondering if you have come across the same issue.”

“Unfortunately, we have.” Riker confirmed.

“I see.” Hurai pondered for a moment. “Then I see I will have to bring in reinforcements. Send in others to help retrieve my team.”

“Are you sure that is the wisest decision?” Riker asked. “No disrespect. But bringing in more men could increase the danger of the situation. What if whatever is on that ship calls out for help and we get more of whatever this is?”

“Then we will have the firepower needed.” Hurai told him. “Do what you want. But I will make sure that whatever is going on doesn’t spill into Romulan territory.” The transmission ended, leaving Riker to once again stare at the Borg ship in front of the Enterprise. Riker let out a deep exhale, pondering the option of asking for assistance from the Federation. What if things get worse and backup was necessary? Even if he reached out now, would any ship reach them in time? He sat and pondered, knowing a decision had to be made soon.

******

They walked for what seemed like an eternity. But Picard eventually found himself facing an opening into a dark chamber. While the two beings let go of his arms, it was clear from their physical position that the only path he could move was the one leading forward. He cautiously stepped into the room. There was light in the chamber, despite it appearing very dark from the other side of the threshold. A large rectangular opening could be seen on the far wall, but it was clear that there was no danger of anyone in the room from being sucked into the vastness of space. There was a large chair that had its back to Picard, the only indication that someone was sitting there was a hand emerging from the left side, holding onto an object. It was a cube of some kind, the hand gently moving and turning it with his grip.

Picard decided to continue stepping forward to the chair. But a figure from the side emerged from the shadow and caught him off guard. While he showed no facial sign of shock, Picard did feel himself tense up as the figure showed itself to him. The majority of hid body dressed in tight leather, the outfit pressed and sewn onto and into his skin it seemed. Similar to the two that had brought him to this chamber. The face was devoid of eyes, nails pulling at the side of its mouth as it forced the figure to permanently show all of its teeth. It continuously clicked his teeth together, the sound of chattering teeth very briefly being the only sound Picard could hear. It was as if the chattering itself tried to increase Picard’s heart rate, tried to force fear to take over his mind.

“Easy, Chatterer.” The voice originated from the unseen man in the chair. It was deep and calm, commanded the attention of everyone that could hear it. It forced the figure that he referred to as Chatterer to pull back and kept its teeth still and silent. It stepped back but remained fully visible. A reminder that Picard should not try and make sudden movements. 

He turned towards the chair and the man who sat in it, his body still unseen. “I am Captain Jean-Luc Picard. I demand to know who you are and what your purpose is with the Borg.”

The hand that held the cube pulled back towards the unseen body. Turning downwards, it pressed the cub on the arm of the chair. He could see the body rise up and start to turn to face the starship captain. Once again, his body was covered in the dark leather that every one of these beings wore. On his chest, there were two openings that exposed a little bit of his flesh. There were scars and blood, mostly dried but still stained the edges of the leather surrounding the opening. His skin was pale, like the female figure with the hole in her neck that brought him here. Pins covered his entire head, all symmetrical and in a proper place. But it was not the sharp needles piercing the man’s skin that held Picard’s attention, but the eyes. They were black, as dark as the shadows separating the stars of the cosmos around this ship. Devoid of any recognizable emotion or expression, cold and direct. Able to pierce right into the heart of anyone that dares to approach him.

“To some, we are demons. But to others, we are angels. Their saviors to take them away from their world of unsatisfaction. You may call us the Cenobites.” He moved quietly, keeping himself composed and trained on Picard. He walked around the chair and stared right at the captain. 

“Is that what you think you are doing here?” Picard asked the man with pins in his head. “To me, I see many being tortured for no reason. The only motivation for blood being spilled is that it satisfies you.”

“We are giving them what has been stolen from them.” He told Picard. “Pain. Followed by pleasure. All the sensations denied to them following their assimilation, now given back. And when they are reunited with their senses, they are far more sensitive to the experience. There are some who right away beg for more, demanding that we continue to explore their flesh and to give them the pleasure that they desire.”

“Of course they will when you force that torture upon them!” Picard snapped back. “They need time to slowly return to what they were before they were Borg. Time to heal and remember who they are.”

The man with dark eyes stepped a little closer to Picard. “You call yourself Jean-Luc Picard. But you have been called another name in your life. Back when you were a part of this kind you call Borg. It was Locutus, was it not?”

Picard took in a deep breath. The faint sound of slow chattering could be heard from the other being. “How have you learned of that?”

“Once we knew of the existence of this species and found our way on this ship, we spent a great deal of time learning about them. How they operate, their history. I recognized your face when we came across the time they tried to wage war on your kind. How they took you and used you to speak on the behalf of their Collective. An individual servant of the larger whole, but a servant nonetheless. You are Locutus, the man who was damned to be deprived of pleasure but who escaped.”

“So is that why you have attacked those other Borg ships floating around you?” Picard asked. “You see their existence in contradiction to your beliefs and wish to wipe them out.”

“Their machines are broken, but their flesh remains.” A sound other than chattering teeth echoed in the chamber. Picard turned his head, his eyes turning downwards to see what was crawling out of the shadows. A hand reached out and grasped at the floor, pulling forward a scarred and bloodied body that once served the Borg. The eyes of the body were scooped out of their sockets, two voids full of nothing but dried blood stared up at Picard. One more pull forward showed that the body wasn’t full, the lower half completely gone. Part of its spine poked out from the other end and was dragged across the floor. The creature called Chatterer stepped towards the crawling torso and stomped hard, keeping its foot on the torso’s back so that it remained in one spot. “There are so many sights for them to see. So many pleasures to experience. I take pity on what they are, but I envy them for what they are about to become. To experience with senses and nerves that are more sensitive than they ever were, to take on the full power of everything our dark lord Leviathan has to give. It is something that very few are blessed enough to experience for themselves.”

Picard stared down at the torse, still somehow alive despite the blood it must have already lost. The man with pins in his head continued to speak. “It was their Collective that summoned us here. A mind that every one of these Borg that still has flesh on it uses and shares. Which means every individual body connected to the Borg shall experience Leviathan’s blessing and gift. Right now, he is calling out to all of them and pulling them towards us.” He watched Picard pull his eyes up from the moaning and groaning torso. The look within Picard’s eyes was filled with something that Cenobite has seen countless times. Horror, an inability to break free from ideas such as good and evil and fully realize the truly momentous event that his realm should be grateful is happening. But hopefully that shall change with what he has to say next.

“You were saved from an existence devoid of pleasure, of physical experience. But is it wrong to say that once you left this Collective that you felt an emptiness within you? A loss of a sense of purpose?” Picard continued to hold his gaze with the Cenobite but said nothing. “You have fooled yourself into thinking you have moved past that period of loss of confusion. But it is still within you, eating and consuming from the inside. Allow me to provide you a chance to satisfy that consumption.” The sound of chains emerging and moving in the darkness around them echoed throughout the chamber. “Accept Leviathan’s offer of becoming an explorer of the flesh and the pleasure that exists within pain. You will become a new Locutus, one who will serve as a savior for all of these Borg. A leader for a species that will forever thank you from an existence of no individuality. Everyone they sense and feel will be unique to them, but they will all still work together for a common goal. Victory in this war on flesh, restoring order to a chaotic dimension.” He stood and pierced right into Picard, waiting for the starship captain to give him a response.

******

Data remained in the chamber with the woman that had a hole in her head, showing the brain within her skull. She walked around him and curiously studied him. “A being that never had a chance to experience its existence with true flesh. No flesh means no true sensations.”

“That is not entirely accurate.” Data responded to her. “Right now, I sense that my captain is in danger.”

“Yet you remain here.”

“That is because he advised me to not try and attack you.” He said. “Probably because we do not yet know the full extent of your kind’s abilities. Any movement or action from me that poses a threat to you could escalate our predicament, thereby preventing us from leaving this ship.”

“You pose no threat to us.” She told him. “Besides, the other Borg shall arrive soon, answering our lord Leviathan’s call. They will be saved from their Collective, free to once again feel pain and receive pleasure.”

“I assume then that serves as your kind’s equivalent of the Borg’s assimilation process.” The woman stood still and crossed her arms. “You intend on manipulating them to join your kind and continue serving this Leviathan’s orders to spread out across into other territories.”

“We will go wherever we are summoned.” She told Data. “They will hear what we are. Hear about the joys and experiences that lay beyond their grasp. Leviathan will provide the means for them to call out to us. Then we will go to them and fulfill their desire.” She started to walk towards the opening. “Come with me.” With no other option laid out before him, Data followed her out of the maturation chamber.

They walked down the hall and throughout several levels of the ship. After several long moments, Data asked the woman another question. “Where is it that you are taking me?”

“There is a purpose for you among the Cenobites.” She said. “Within you, you are able to know how to provide the experiences many seek us out for. Able to serve in a mechanical yet efficient way. But what good is efficiency when you have not had the chance to experience the pleasures yourself?” She pulled back a curtain of another room. “This prisoner will give you the chance to allow you to know what it is like to have flesh. To know what true plain and pleasure is like.”

Surprise and shock are feelings beyond Data’s abilities. But when he looked at what was in this chamber, chances are he would experience both. A structure known as a octahedron stood in the middle of the chamber. It was made up of three kinds of material. The technology that normally made up a Borg ship, the same kind of stone that appeared throughout this particular ship, and bloodied human flesh. Towards the middle of the structure, there was a face that seemed to be sewn into the structure itself. His eyes were closed and there were scars on his face, but Data could confirm that the face of Q was what he was looking at. Trapped by Cenobites and seemingly unable to save himself.


End file.
